RELEASE: 2 CAP Products Highlight What’s at Stake If TPS Ends

Washington, D.C. — In advance of The TPS People’s Summit, a national day of mobilization and lobbying calling on Congress to enact permanent protections for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, the Center for American Progress released a columnand fact sheethighlighting the harmful consequences of ending TPS. The column discusses the demographics of the population and their impacts on the U.S. economy, while the fact sheet identifies the effects of three possible scenarios following termination and the impacts each would have on U.S.-citizen children.

TPS holders from El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras—three of the six countries for which TPS designations are set to end as a result of actions by the Trump administration—represent 94 percent of the nearly 318,000 individuals currently protected under the program. This is what’s at stake should courts side with the Trump administration and Congress fail to act:

TPS holders have long-established lives in the United States

279,000 U.S.-citizen children live with family members who are TPS holders from these three countries.

Salvadoran TPS holders have lived in the United States for an average of 22 years, Hondurans for 23 years, and Haitians for 17 years.

29 percent to 32 percent of TPS holders were under the age of 18 when they arrived in the United States.

Approximately 620,000 individuals live in a household with a family member whom TPS protects.

21 states and the District of Columbia have at least 1,500 residents holding TPS.

The United States economy benefits from workers with TPS

TPS holders have a labor force participation rate of 87 percent—with more than 246,000 working in the United States.

The largest occupation groups are cleaning and maintenance occupations, at 48,000; construction, with 44,000; and a sizable number—9,300—work in crucial occupations related to child care, personal care, and home health aides.

The annual spending power of TPS holders is more than $10.1 billion.

Households with TPS holders contribute $2.3 billion in federal taxes and $1.3 billion in state and local taxes annually.

One-third of households with a TPS holder in the United States have a mortgage.

“TPS holders have lived in the United States for decades; they’ve created lives for themselves here—raising hundreds of thousands of U.S.-born children in the homes they own and working in jobs that keep the country going,” said Nicole Prchal Svajlenka, senior policy analyst of Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress. “Now, many TPS holders are reckoning with an impossible choice for themselves and their families: return to a country that they have not seen in a generation or remain undocumented in the United States. Congress should not wait until the courts decide their fates and must protect these families, offering them a pathway to citizenship in the country they have called home for so long.”